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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a crowd of tens of thousands of people at a rally in support of right-wing parties at Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on Sunday. Netanyahu claimed that "a massive fortune" of foreign money had flowed into Israel from abroad from organizations dedicated to removing him from power. He said that, because of this, currently, the Right does not have enough votes to put together a strong governing coalition, but that closing the gap with the Zionist Union is achievable. "If we don't close the gap, there is a danger that a left-wing government will come into...

There is about to be a mistake. The only country in the region of which all the other countries are envious -- for opportunity, equal justice under law, freedom to speak without the 2 a.m. knock on the door -- has an election this week. Its citizens are tired of war -- right on schedule for its enemies' plans to destroy it. The Israelis are meant to be tired of war; that is why it is called "a war of attrition." Many Israelis seem to be counting on some deeply wished-for love from the current U.S. Administration. What they may...

I have been warning for months that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might lose the March 17 election. In November 2014, before elections were called, I noted that Netanyahu had been elected on a promise to oppose Barack Obama, and now that Obama’s lame-duck term had begun, Israeli voters might feel secure enough to look elsewhere for leadership. What they–and indeed many Americans–failed to see was how much damage Obama still intended to cause.

Benjamin Netanyahu is addressing tens of thousands from Rabin Square live. Live video at link in English.

JERUSALEM (AP) — As Israelis prepare to vote in parliament elections on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself at a fateful crossroads: Make history or become history. If Netanyahu can lead his Likud Party to victory and secure a fourth term in office, he will move closer to overtaking the nation's iconic founding father, David Ben-Gurion, as the longest-ever serving premier — and cementing a status as the dominant Israeli politician of the past two decades. But if Likud stumbles and finds itself in the opposition — a real possibility, according to recent polls — the Netanyahu era could...

It came by surprise and the incumbent’s opponent failed to seize the moment. On Saturday night, at the conclusion of an interview with Isaac Herzog on Channel 2′s ‘Meet the Press’ program, the host brought on Benjamin Netanyahu for a rare and impromptu three minute debate. Netanyahu, who was interviewed in a live feed from his office immediately after Herzog, was asked by host Rina Matzliach if he had any questions for Herzog, who was in the studio, before his interview began. Netanyahu took the bat and criticized Herzog and Tzipi Livni for criticizing the government on the world stage...

The next 22 months until President Barack Obama leaves office promise to be the most challenging period in the history of US-Israel relations. Now unfettered by electoral concerns, over the past week Obama exposed his ill-intentions toward Israel in two different ways. First, the Justice Department leaked its intention to indict Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez on corruption charges. Menendez is the ranking Democratic member, and the former chairman, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is also the most outspoken Democratic critic of Obama’s policy of appeasing the Iranian regime. As former US federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote this week...

Democrats who opposed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuÂ’s speech before a joint session of Congress earlier this month wanted to have it both ways. Many claimed that NetanyahuÂ’s speech was a grave miscalculation; it politicized AmericaÂ’s alliance with Israel, and would expose the prime minister as something less than impartial when it came to domestic American politics. This, they said, would reflect poorly on him as a politician and expose his inability to navigate the complexities of American politics. Simultaneously, some on the American left claimed that NetanyahuÂ’s speech would have the effect of boosting his stature at home...

A major campaign rally for the right wing is planned for Sunday evening in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. The “United for the Land of Israel” rally is being organized by Nachala, an organization run by former Kedumim mayor Daniella Weiss and United Headquarters for the Land of Israel. Like everything else to date in the run up to the Israeli elections, it too is fraught with internal conflict. Right wing leaders are opposed to the rally and Weiss has been trying for several weeks to convince them to attend the event. Many of the leaders on the right actually wanted...

Four days before elections, most surveys have Netanyahu’s party 3-4 seats behind Herzog’s On the last weekend before Tuesday’s general election, Israeli media published the final polls for the current election cycle before a four-day moratorium on surveys. The Zionist Union kept its lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in those polls, with most giving Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni’s joint list a 3-4 seat edge over its competitor. A Maariv poll had Zionist Union with 25 and Likud with 21. Yesh Atid was tied with the Joint (Arab) List for 13, with Jewish Home trailing at 11....

US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah II on the sidelines of economic talks in Egypt on Friday, US officials said. The talks are likely to focus on the economic crisis facing the Palestinian Authority and could be a four-way meeting which would also include Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a State Department official said. "We continue to be concerned about the PA," the official told reporters travelling with Kerry on his plane to the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. "It’s really part of the continuous, ongoing conversation we’re...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel will not cede territory due to the current climate in the Middle East, appearing to rule out the establishment of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu's comments, which came as he sought to appeal to hard-liners ahead of national elections next week, rejected a key goal of the international community and bode poorly for future peace efforts if he is re-elected.

It would appear from the laudatory coverage in American media that Bibi Netanyahu is a shoo-in for election as prime minister of the United States; in Israel, not so much. At least, this is the only conclusion one can draw from this weekÂ’s polls in the run-up to IsraelÂ’s Knesset elections on March 17.Against all expectations, Netanyahu received only the slightest of bounces as a result of the speech, which was televised and covered on radio in Israel.These are the current numbers of the average of polls for this week:Party This Week Last WeekHaMachane haTziyoni 24 25Likud 23 23United...

A speech by Zionist Union alliance head and Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog was cut off in the middle of a broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 television network due to concern that Herzog’s remarks constituted elections propaganda. “There’s no doubt Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks well, but let’s admit the truth: the speech we heard, impressive as it might have been, did not stop the Iranian nuclear program,” Herzog said on the Tuesday night broadcast regarding Netanyahu’s address to Congress, according to Israel Hayom. “It also won’t affect the deal being put together, either in terms of content or timetable. The...

Senior members of the Likud party – including, some say, even the most senior of them – are keeping their fingers crossed for President Barack Obama. They hope that he won’t fall ill, that he won’t fly off to some distant continent, that a cat won’t get his tongue, and that he won’t become suddenly faint-hearted about the escalating confrontation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As in the well-known joke about the sadist and the masochist, the Likudniks are eager to continue being pummeled by Obama directly or by his secretary of state or by his national security adviser. They’ve...

Herzog vowed that, if elected PM, in his first 100 days as prime minister he would focus on three issues in particular: solving the housing crisis, "renewing relations with the US and the (political) process with the Palestinians." "If need be, I will travel to Ramallah and present to the Palestinian Parliament a vision of hope," he declared.

WASHINGTON — Jeremy Bird, the architect of the grass-roots and online organizing efforts that powered President Obama’s presidential campaigns from Chicago, is advising a similar operation in Tel Aviv. But this time it is focused on ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. His consulting work for the group V15 — an independent Israeli organization that does not support specific candidates but is campaigning to replace Israel’s current government — has added yet another political layer to the diplomatic mess surrounding Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to address a joint meeting of Congress next week on Iran. The White House has argued...

Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog announced Tuesday he will not be traveling to the US to appear before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference, amid growing tensions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned speech to Congress on March 3. "Netanyahu's spin about who is going to Washington must stop," Herzog told a gathering of foreign media in Israel. "My firm position against a nuclear Iran is known by every Israeli and American, including the US president, and I know how to voice it in a sharp, clear manner - from here, not from there." Herzog added: "A...

What is Zionism? The ideological question, rooted in the 19th century, has gained surprising urgency in an Israeli election campaign that seems more open than had been expected. Seeking to take votes from the nationalistic right of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the relatively liberal opposition has rebranded itself as the Zionist Union—sparking a debate about a concept that some considered resolved when the Jewish state was declared and widely recognized in 1948. […] On the left, politicians speak of true Zionism as requiring the establishment of peace and equality in the land, including by making peace with the Palestinians and...

On the surface, the two candidates are as different as can be. Netanyahu is warring with President Obama. Herzog seems to want to be President Obama: The Labor Party leader is campaigning on an Israeli version of “hope and change.” Herzog’s billboards promise Israeli parents an extra teacher in each kindergarten classroom. Netanyahu warns about “the people who want to kill us.” He is fixated on the Iranian mullahs, who he says pose an existential threat to the Jewish state and places beyond. Netanyahu is prepared to risk the ire of the White House and Democrats to make his case...